The Terror
against the Ay family must stop!

Video-Interview with the film director Ken
Loach, actor Colin Firth plus new
Peter Mullan and Gary Lewis
The Ay
family was headline news last year because the four children were kept
in a
detention center in Scotland. Incarcerating innocent children in a
prison for
an year shocked many people in Scotland and Britain and the family
gained much
sympathy and support. Despite this the family was deported to Germany
in August
2003. The British Home Office justified the deportation on the basis
that the
Kurdish family had applied for asylum in Germany before coming to
Britain, and
that Germany is a ‘safe third country’ where the case will receive a
just
hearing.

In mid
February this year a rejection by a German court meant that the family
is now
facing deportation to Turkey.

The Ay
parents fled persecution in Kurdistan and applied for political asylum
in
Germany in 1988. In 1999, facing imminent deportation they risked their
lives
to hide in a truck to escape to Britain.

1999 was a
terrible year for Kurdish refugees as it was the year that Abdullah
Ocalan the
leader of the PKK was abducted and handed over to the Turkish
authorities.
Apart from being a shock for all Kurds, specially in Germany there was
massive
media campaign against the Kurds. The argument was that the Kurdish
refugees in
Germany will participate in violent actions in Germany and Europe
because of
Europe’s duplicity in Ocalans capture. Guilty conscience on the part of
Europe’s rulers no doubt. Despite the fact that the massive
demonstrations all
over Europe were peaceful and disciplined – Germany the country with
the
largest number of Kurds in Europe initiated a massive drive to deport
tens of
thousands of politically active Kurds – at this time when Kurds faced
unprecedented danger in Turkey. An expression of the terrible hysteria
against
the Kurds during 1999 was the killing of four protesters outsider the
Israeli
embassy. The Embassy admitted subsequently that although they had at
the time
thought the there was a danger from the Kurdish protesters, later they
realised
that in fact there was no real danger. It was during this period that
the Ay
family felt it necessary to embark on the dangerous trip to Britain.

Beriwan (15) her sisters, Newroz, (13), and
Medya (9), and brother
Dilowan, (11) is to be ‘sent back’ to a country that they have never
seen. The
most concrete attachment they have to country where their parents were
born is
the Kurdish language – which is unacceptable in Turkey the country that
they
forced to go ‘back’ to. The children have been socialised in Europe –
and what
a socialisation. Every time they make human bonds of friendship and
struggle to
live a normal life, the authorities, whether German or British, lash
out
viciously to break these bonds and replace it with anxiety and terror.

The vibrant campaign in Britain and
Scotland to win the families right
to stay in Britain was clearly crucial for the children as they can
recognise
some humanity in a part of European society. But now the goal posts
have
changed again.– the campaign in Britain
and Scotland for the family to be brought back must be mobilised
quickly to put
pressure on the German authorities to stop the deportation to Turkey.

Letters
protesting against the planned deportation of the Ay family should be
sent to us, the IMRV, which we will forward the relevant
authorities.